


good and gone!

by muppetstiefel



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (sorry bro), Aged-Up Losers Club (IT), Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Everyone is Alive Except Georgie Denbrough, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Internalized Homophobia, It's happier than it sounds, M/M, Modern Era, POV Multiple, Runaway Losers, Stanley Uris Has OCD, they're like 17/18
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muppetstiefel/pseuds/muppetstiefel
Summary: "They’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now, and already Stan feels himself being melded to this new normal. The routine is simple: drive, sleep, wake, wait, eat, repeat. Before, Stan would’ve clung to the idea of escaping Derry and his father through good grades and an eventual scholarship. It seems so much simpler – and not cowardly, Bev had insisted – to just run from his problems. Even if his back does ache and he can never fully relax."Or: the Losers Club runaway/road trip fic that no one asked for.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Beverly Marsh & Stanley Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon & Stanley Uris & Beverly Marsh, Mike Hanlon/Stanley Uris
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	good and gone!

**Stan**

The first thing Stan sees when he wakes up is the roof of the van. It’s brown, almost a wooden texture, and it’s the only part of the van that’s remotely clean. Before, the idea of sleeping in a van that hasn’t been deep cleaned would make his skin crawl. Now, he just pushes the thought out of his head and rolls onto his side.

His leg is aching from being trapped underneath the weight of his body, and everything is sore, especially his left side to which he shifts all his weight. They’ve covered the minivan bunks with a few blankets that they got at their last pit stop, but it barely makes the hard beds any more comfortable. Stan reaches up to rub the sleep from his eyes, and squints through the haze until he sees Bev staring back at him. They’re barely even a meter apart, but they’re in their own little pods and there’s a blanket and pillow on the floor between them. They leave it there for Mike, not that he ever sleeps in the back with them.

Bev is awake. She shoots him a small smile which pulls at the corners of her mouth sharply. It looks painful, paired with her bloodshot eyes and pale, drawn skin. Like this, she looks like she could be Stan’s twin. He never thought the two of them looked alike before. People had enough trouble believing they were friends, let alone siblings. She shifts back on her own bed and pats at the slither of space left, and Stan obligingly moves into it, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and squeezing. She told him, once, just after she moved to Derry, that she liked it when someone squeezed tightly when hugging her; that it reminded her she’s full of air and breath and life. Stan, in turn, buries his nose in her hair and inhales sharply. She smells of unwashed sweat, and stale air, but the hint of lemon laundry powder clings to her scent and he laps it up. It reminds him of home.

They’ve been doing this a couple of weeks now, and already Stan feels himself being melded to this new normal. The routine is simple: drive, wake, wait, eat, repeat. Before, Stan would’ve clung to the idea of escaping Derry and his father through good grades and an eventual scholarship. It seems so much simpler – and not cowardly, Bev had insisted – to just run from his problems. Even if his back does ache and he can never fully relax.

“Did you sleep well?” She murmurs into the embrace. She asks every morning, even though Stan never answers. He never sleeps well, and neither does Bev. Their nights are full of open silence as they both lay awake and listen to the engine whirr until it finally cuts off roughly. There’s too much in that stifling air. Too much history, too much trauma which lies stagnating between the two of them.

“We’re not moving,” Stan says in answer, delivered straight into the raggedly cut mess of her hair. She cut it herself, back when they first ran away from the shithole that is Derry, and won’t let Stan tidy it up for her. Not that he minds. He doesn’t relish the responsibility.

Bev pulls back and sits up. She looks too perfect, in the musty darkness, with Mike’s t-shirt clinging tightly to her sweaty skin, and Stan for a minute feels inferior about his own jumper and shorts combo. Not many people could pull of cross-country travelling without a shower, but somehow Bev does. Then again, Stan thinks, she’s always been like that. Hell, she managed to look angelic when covered in blood. He wishes once again that he could find some attraction within her rumpled, sleepy look, but he can’t, no matter how hard he tries.

Stan tries not to think about that, or the way his nose stings with a reminder of the acrid scent, and instead sits up too. He drags a hand through his hair and pushes himself up onto the heels of his hands.

It’s Bev who clambers out of their nest first and tugs at the van door till it gives way under her hand. Stan doesn’t welcome the bite of the early morning air on his legs, any more than he welcomes having to wear shorts in March in Pennsylvania, but his choices are limited. When he had packed, he hadn’t imagined a life without a washer and dryer, and now he’s starting to regret his choices to pick summer options over endless pairs of slacks and jeans.

“Jesus Christ!” Bev curses, as she throws herself down on the edge of the van and tugs on her sneakers. They’re hot pink, and beaten up and Stan remembers when she found them on the sale rack at the store. He would smile at the memory, but the air is biting into his legs and they don’t have time to just do nothing. They have somewhere to be, somewhere they’re driving to. Time is a precious commodity.

He pulls his own shoes on and climbs out of the van, sliding the doors shut behind him. The parking lot around them is half-finished and mostly vacant, save a few pickup trucks and a minibus in the distance, probably due to the fact that the sun has barely even risen, spattering the horizon with dots of pink and yellow.

“Mikey!” Bev starts, and Stan turns away from the landscape and instead draws his eyes to his right. Mike has climbed out of the vans driver’s seat and Bev has already thrown her arms around his neck, and is pressing her lips to his cheek again, and again. He laughs, tries to bat her away, but it’s half-hearted and he wraps his arms around her waist in return.

Sometimes Stan finds it hard to believe Mike is the same age as them. He’s about as tall as Stan himself, but his body has filled out thicker, and his face is drawn in a way that suggests age. Stan still has the remnants of a baby face and thin, spindly arms. Mike never went to school with them, either, which is probably why he seems so much older than them. He was educated by the world, and he’s toughened by it – yet still so improbably gentle.

“Morning Bev,” Mike laughs, voice low and reverberating as she finally pulls away. He’s fully dressed, unlike the two of them, crumpled white t-shirt and jeans, which are stained green at the hem like they’ve been dragged through grass. Knowing Mike, they probably have. He runs a hand over the vans bonnet, soothingly, like he does every morning. Stan met plenty of people in Derry who loved their cars more than their wife and kids, but he never met any who treated one with the same reverence which Mike does. It’s like a deep, soul crushing kind of love. Sometimes, Stan wishes it were him on the receiving end of that love.

“You were driving all through the night again,” Bev scolds gently, leaning up to stretch her body out, arms raised above her head. “You promised you would get some sleep.”

Mike shrugs, and he looks almost sheepish, smile pulling at his lips. “There wasn’t time to sleep. I had to get us here, didn’t I?”

Bev rolls her eyes, reaching into the driver’s seat through the cracked window and extracting a pack of cigarettes which Mike keeps there. “Tonight?”

“Tonight,” Mike vows solemnly. They all know he won’t sleep tonight – that he won’t sleep till he collapses with exhaustion – but it’s their little routine, and Stan lets them indulge in it for a minute.

“Okay boys,” Bev salutes with the pack of cigarettes, already starting towards the portaloo in the corner of the half-cemented car park. “I’m off to ‘freshen up’. I’ll be ten, tops.”

Which leaves Stan, with Mike. He’s leant over the vans open window, rooting around for something, which he pulls out triumphantly. It’s quiet, in the early hours of the morning in the makeshift car park, and if Stan weren’t so sure that it’s the ideal spot for murderers and rapists, he’d feel relaxed. Not that Mike would let anything happen to him. He wouldn’t let anything happen to me, or to Bev, Stan tells himself, and lets himself relax when Mike tugs open the drivers seat door and perches on the edge of it.

He unfurls the thing in his hand and lays it flat around his knees. It’s their map, Stan realises, with Maine and New York already crossed out. Their morning tradition is going through the map and crossing out their location, like a checklist. Mike offers him the pen and Stan lowers himself into the dirty gravel, leaning in to examine the map.

“Where are we?” They arrived in Pennsylvania yesterday, and Stan assumes they must have been steadily moving through the night. Mike’s a steady, careful driver.

“Lawrence,” Mike replies. Stan is leant in so close he can almost hear the steady pace of his heartbeat, pounding against his ribcage. Everything about Mike is strong, and sure, Stan thinks as he dashes the pen through the place name. Mike’s always been the strong one, ever since Stan found his van camped out in the woods. There to hold him in place when he crumbles.

He smiles at Stan, a small smile which Stan returns. If he were stronger, he would press his head into Mike’s lap and curl up, and allow himself to feel safe for the first time in a while.

Instead, he lets his eyes skate to where California is ringed in red and peppered by stars. Bev did that, the first day they set out on the road, when they bought the map from a roadside store. She had looked happy, and her hands had stopped shaking for the first time since they had run. California is where her life is, her new one, waiting with an aunt she barely remembers, and it will be where Stan’s is too, if they ever get there. He’ll make himself room there, make himself a life.

He once asked Mike what was in this for him, what was waiting for him in California. But all he’d received in return was a small shrug and a “same thing that’s waiting for me anywhere else.” Stan doesn’t ask questions like that anymore. Mike never asked any of him, so it’s only fair.

“Not long to go,” Stan hears himself saying, voice breathy and foreign in his own ears. Mike nods in response. Stan feels it from where he’s knelt, knees pushed against the harsh gravel.

* * *

The one thing Stan never realised about going on the run was how boring it would be.

He thought there’d be more of a pursuit, a cop chase when three kids vanish from a town in Maine, but there’s being no brush in with the law so far, despite Stan’s vanishing being plastered over the news as the passed through New York. Most of the time, there’s nothing to do. They don’t drive in the day, because there’s more chance of getting stopped by kindly police officers camped out with speed cameras. No, they drive at night. The days are specifically reserved for an especially boring kind of nothing. Mike sleeps a lot, to make up for the missed hours during the day, so that leaves him, and Bev, and nothing at all to do. Stan always thought he was good at was being alone with his thoughts, but he never had this much time on his hands. He forces himself to do math in his mind: his skill is going to suffer from not being at school, so he uses this time to practise, flipping sums and long division in his mind.

What he would give for his phone, even if it was a crappy model with a broken camera that he barely used because he used his money for petrol, not for credit. At least then he could play eight-bit Tetris and have something to do with his hands other than play with the edges of their map.

He’s laid flat on his back on the bed to the left of the minivan – the bed at his right is neglected in favour of the thin, corridor like floor in between the two beds which are pushed flush to the wall where Bev is sat at his feet, her own legs tucked up to her chest, chin pressed to knees. She’s reading, the same book she’s been reading since New York, a battered copy of Agatha Christie she bought from a guy with a stand by fifth. Stan knows she’s already finished it twice, and she’s going in for the third. Her face is contorted in concentration, and pain, as though she’s feeling the murder in her own skin. Mike isn’t here. There’s a spare bed, but he tends to nap in the front of the minivan, curled up in his seat. It can’t be comfortable, but he declines any offer to sleep in the back of the van, despite it being _his van_. Stan had tried to insist but Bev had told him to leave it.

As Stan pushes himself to sit up, smoothing down his shirt, she raises an eyebrow at him. Silent conversation- they were good at it back in Derry, but they’ve mastered it on the road. Stan wonders sometimes, if he understands Bev face better than his own.

He nods in response to her silent question and throws his legs over the side of the bed. She shuffles closer towards him, and tilts her head on to his lap. Her head brushes against his bare calf, hair tickling the bare skin and it would really gross him out if it wasn’t Bev.

“What’s happening?” he gestures towards the book. The thoughts in his head are louder today than he wants to admit. Back home, when they got this loud, he’d turn on something loud and drown them out, or else turn to school work, or that terms extracurricular. There’s none of that here. Instead he turns to Bev, and the indisputable way she always manages to soothe out the lines of his brains.

He should’ve turned to her earlier than this. Then he wouldn’t even have half the thoughts in his brain.

She frowns up at him. “I’ll just spoil it if I tell you.”

“I don’t mind,” Stan says, and it’s earnest, he really doesn’t care, he just needs to hear the calm of Bev’s voice and the soothing words of a literary genius. Not that he was ever really a fan of Christie. He was always more into Plath.

Bev hesitates, looking almost mournful, like she regrets to spoil the book, but she turns her attention back to the pages. “I was slightly nervous when I rang the bell at Marby Grange the following afternoon,” she begins, commanding as ever. Stan remembers watching her back in the school play. He hadn’t even wanted to go, had hated the idea of sitting in the school’s sweaty auditorium after hours, squashed between classmates who don’t even like him. But Bev had begged, and he couldn’t let her down, couldn’t piss off his only friend. She was mesmerising on stage, and afterwards he had been glad he had gone, even if he had pissed off his parents, getting in at one AM from the cast party.

“I wondered very much what Poirot expected to find out,” Bev continues, and Stan lets his head tip back, trying to feel contented. “He had entrusted the job to me. Why? Was it because, as in the case of questioning Major Blunt, he wished to remain in the background? The wish, intelligible in the first case, seemed to me quite meaningless here. My meditations were interrupted by the advent of a smart parlour maid-”

Bev’s voice cuts out, and she glances up at Stan. He barely registers it at first, the stop in her voice, too busy staring at the roof of the van. If he swiped his finger across it, it would probably come away covered in dust. The thought makes his skin crawl. He forces his eyes away from the roof, and down to Bev, who isn’t frowning for once, but instead gesturing back to the book.

“Did you know she was an anti-Semite? Allegedly, I mean,” Bev says, flicking through the books pages.

“Oh yeah?” Stan asks back, shifting a little so he can see the author portrait more clearly. It reads like a glum obituary, and the photo is less than flattering, all sharp angles and pinched skin. She looks old and worn, even through a lens.

Bev nods, and snaps the book cover shut. “She hated everyone, though, so don’t worry about it. Catholics, especially, so we’re in the same boat.”

Bev hasn’t been to church since her confirmation, which barely makes her Catholic in Gods eyes, but then again Stan can’t remember the last time he went to temple, so they probably are even. The difference is that Bev doesn’t care what her God thinks of her, and Stan thinks of nothing but what his does.

“What about…” Stan’s mouth clenches around the word, and he struggles to force it out. “Gay people?”

Bev just laughs at him and shakes her head. She makes it so easy, acting like it’s nothing when the word sticks in his throat again and again. He should be able to say it by now. It’s what he is.

“Fine, you win,” Bev mock-sighs in surrender, leaning back again and opening the book back up to read.

“What did she think about black people?” Mike’s voice carries loudly in the quietness of the van, and in Stan’s head. He hadn’t even realised that the back door had been slid open, or that there was someone there, watching, surveying.

Bev shrugs, tossing the book aside onto the bed and pulling herself up off the floor. “Oh, you know. The usual racist shit.”

Mike nods, almost knowingly, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the doorframe. “She sounds lovely.”

Bev is sweeping across the space, throwing herself down on the bunk with full weight, and she’s already started off on something so Stan knows there’s no point in stopping her. Mike stays hovered in the doorway, but he’s smiling fondly at Bev, and he’s actually listening. Normally this is the situation where Stan would do something, anything, to avoid himself being at the centre of someone else’s conversation. But it’s okay, because Mike is smiling at him now, and now he is a part of it, even if he doesn’t want to be.

“She’s just a usual bigot,” Bev responds, laying down on the bed, the book laid across her chest, spine bending more than it was already creased. Stan can hear the spine snapping in his head, and it makes him wince. “Yet no one cares. Even back then, people should’ve known you can’t just be a bigoted dick and get away with it. And she’s what? The third bestselling author of all time? After Shakespeare and Jesus.”

“I don’t think Jesus wrote the bible, Bev,” Stan says softly, back pressed to the side of the bed, and it makes Mike chuckle, deep yet gentle. Stan glances to him and Mike nods at him in good nature. Stan feels his heart clench.

If Bev saw the exchanged look, she says nothing, still barrelling on. “I’m Catholic, Stan, I know Jesus didn’t write the bible. I was just making a hyperbolic point.”

Stan stifles his laugh by biting at his lip, which makes Bev glare at him and attempt to chuck the book at his head. It grazes his temple and instead slams into the vans tinny wall, making a sound which resounds loudly. She’s laughing and apologising, already on her feet and checking his head for any inflicted wounds when Mike meets his eyes. He tilts his head out of the van door which sits ajar, and Stan knows what that means. He dodges Bev’s searching hands and instead starts for the door, and for Mike.

“We’re going to the bathrooms,” Mike explains as they head out, holding the van door open for Stan. Bev is searching for his eyes, and he knows when he looks at her she’ll just raise her eyebrows again in that knowing way. So he doesn’t look at her- not that it makes any difference.

“You boys have fun!” she shouts after them.

Stan feels his cheeks burning at the insinuation of her words. “Enjoy your bigot book,” he snaps back, hoping the retribution will shut her up, or at least give them an adequate escape route.

“I’ll stop reading it if you buy me another one,” she returns, voice fading as Mike closes the backdoor, and turns instead to Stan.

He knows how it looks, especially to Bev. He knows that his every day bathroom trip with Mike looks suspicious. It’s not that he doesn’t like Mike, and it’s certainly not that they haven’t done this before. For a while back in Derry Stan would find every excuse to hang out with Mike alone, to just be with Mike, and for a while they were even ‘together’ – in some sense of the word. It’s not be like that since they left Derry, and for a while before that. Things changed when Stan did, and they’re not going to go back. Stan has tried and tried, but he made too many mistakes for things to just go back to how they were. Mike is hurting, even if he doesn’t show it.

Still, every day Mike walks Stan across the parking lot of wherever they are and to the bathrooms. Stan can’t explain why his brain and body seize up in public bathrooms, but he hadn’t had to because Mike knows. He walks him to the bathroom and waits outside while Stan tries not to cry and to wash his face with toilet paper and cheap soap.

The walk is silent, with Mike’s hands shoved deep into the pockets of his slacks, and Stan’s hanging limp at his side. Today’s toilet of choice is a makeshift portaloo in the middle of the parking lot. It’s a faded blue colour, and smells like death, but Stan still forces himself to shoot Mike a wobbly smile as he ducks inside.

He tries to remember what his therapist had said. Counting helps, so he tries to count as he turns on the tap with his sleeve. He wishes he could hold his breath, but he can’t risk passing out on the floor of this cubicle, which is damp and coloured brown. Oh god.

“You’re doing great Stan,” Mike’s voice is strong, even inside the cubicle, and it nearly makes Stan openly weep. Instead he forces a hand over his mouth and struggles to inhale, to breathe. He makes it through a few shaky breaths before he finally manages to force his hands under the faucet and splash the cold water on his face.

He doesn’t deserve this. Doesn’t deserve Mike outside his door, encouraging him, helping him. He deserves to suffer with this alone. Mike wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him, neither would Beverly, they’d still be at home, safe and happy-

Stank yanks the cubicle door open before the thoughts consume him. Mike is waiting outside, faithful as ever, and frowns when he sees the look on Stan’s face.

“You okay?” He asks softly, crossing towards Stan, who just nods and surges forward.

* * *

“No. No way,” Bev has her stern motherly voice on, eyes downturned and lips pressed into a thin line. Stan feels like a scolded child, twisting away from her scrutinising gaze and instead staring petulantly at his feet. If she’s going to treat him like a child, he has a right to sulk like one.

They’re parked down the road from the nearest 7/11, pulled up onto the grass verge from the highway. Money dried up three weeks back, when they were squatting in New York City and since then they have relied on broken security cameras, Bev’s light fingers and Mike’s endless charm. It’s dangerous, but not eating tends to have worse effects than stealing in their own experience. How else are they going to get to California, Bev had insisted? Still, it doesn’t sit right in Stan’s gut, and he can’t eat the stolen corn chips or hot dogs without seeing his father’s face, which tends to make him feel more sick than not eating.

He couldn’t imagine the guilt if he actually had to take the stuff, but it’s never been an issue before. There may be no manhunt out for Bev, or for Mike, but that doesn’t mean his face isn’t plastered around the endless newsreels. It’s honestly a little overboard from parents who never even liked him. Still, it’s his reality, and if they want to get to California it’s best for him to stay away from committing felonies.

It doesn’t assuage the guilt he feels in the pit of his stomach that he’s not doing _enough_. Mike drives them through the night, despite the fact that he has nothing to run from, and Bev makes sure they eat, and that the van keeps running, and that Stan doesn’t slowly go insane in the depths of the night. And what does he do? Slow them down? He wants to do something, and what are his parents gonna do if they do find him at some back alley 7/11 on his way out of Pennsylvania? They don’t care about him enough as a son to fly over here, he knows that for sure.

“Fuck no Stanley,” Bev says, and honestly, he’s a little surprised. He thought she’d relish at the extra hands on deck, but she seems firmly pissed off at the idea, shifting slightly and digging her feet into the grass embankment.

“Why not?” Stan pushes on resolutely, folding his arms across his chest. He feels like a child, but he’s being treated like one, so he feels it’s rightly deserved.

“What if they have cameras? What if we get caught? What if they connect you to that missing kid from Maine and while you’re in a cell your dad flies out-”

“My dad isn’t going to fly to Lawrence-” Stan begins, because the idea is laughable. His dad didn’t even come to his band meets. He’s not flying to Pennsylvania for him.

Bev cuts him off in a flurry, voice hushed despite the rushing flow of traffic which drowns out their conversation to anyone nearby. “Stan, I know you want to help, but you’re being reckless.”

“When have I ever been reckless?” he returns, which successfully shuts her up. “I used to have a timetable for my free time, Bev. I think through my decision, and I’ve thought through this one. I want to do this.”

Bev opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but then Mike is pulling himself up from where he’s been leaning against the side of the van, silent surveying the dispute. He does this a lot; watches Bev and Stan argue from the side lines, only stepping in when things get ugly, which isn’t often. Now, though, he gently steps in front of Bev, murmuring something Stan can’t hear, before turning on him. He looks slightly threatening in the shadows cast by the van’s headlights, looming over Stan, but his eyes are kind and his hand gentle when he sets it on his shoulder.

“You sure you want to do this?” he says gently, voice mingling with the air and dying before it can reach Bev. Stan finds he can’t look away from the way Mike lowers himself, eyes searching for an answer in Stan’s own.

He just nods, solemnly, and looks away.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Bev says when Mike draws back. Her tone is still biting, but she throws an arm around Stan’s shoulder, and he knows she trusts him.

* * *

The food run is surprisingly easy. The only other person in the shop is the cashier, a teenage boy a little younger than Stan who is nearly falling asleep at the cash register. Stan follows the plan and heads in two minutes after Mike, heading straight for the drinks fridge. He loads his backpack with energy drinks and water, then picks up a single coke and drops it at the counter. He pays for it with pocket change and then he’s out, out the door, like its easy. Mike is still looking, still ‘shopping’, and Bev heads in when Stan reaches the van.

“I thought it would be harder than that,” Stan confesses as they split their loot at the vans chipped wood table– plenty of non-perishables, and a few bread roles and cheeses which are starting to mould at the edges. Before, Stan would’ve wrinkled his nose at them but now he gladly accepts his share and picks at the mould.

“The hard bit comes afterwards,” Bev tells him, mouth full of chips.

“They might not have worked it out in store, but there’s always cameras,” Mike explains, leaning in close so Stan can hear him. Their knees are touching with the lack of distance, and Stan yearns to lean into the touch. If he were a better person, he would.

“So they what? Work out that stuff is missing and call the police?”

Mike shakes his head and leans back, the contact broken. He’s not eating much, just drinking a mountain dew and surveying Stan silently. “No, most places just cut their losses and leave it at that. Robberies happen every day, most of their cameras don’t even work and they’re insured anyway.”

“And what about the ones that do call the police?” Stan presses, which makes Bev laugh.

“Told you it was dangerous, Stanny.”

Stan scowls at her, but it just makes her laugh harder.

* * *

Bev falls asleep before they even start driving again for the night. She’s curled around herself in her bunk, and it would be almost cute if it weren’t sad that it’s the most relaxed she’s looked in a long time. Stan would wake her, but she needs the sleep so instead he wraps his blanket around the base of her body and clambers out the back of the van.

If Mike is surprised when Stan clambers in the passenger seat, he doesn’t make it known. It’s not their usual routine. Normally Stan stays in the back with Bev and tries to sleep too, but tonight he feels awake, and victorious.

Mike reaches for the heating and turns it up, before starting the van and pulling off the grass embankment. Stan puts his hands in front of the heater and rubs them together, thankful for the extra warmth. He’s got a thick sweater on now, but he’s still in shorts and thermal socks. He tugs his shoes off and pulls his feet onto the seat, hugging his knees and rubbing them to try and generate some heat.

“Thanks,” Mike says, and the sudden sincerity is jarring to Stan. “For helping us out. Bev won’t admit it, but it’s easier with three. So, thank you.”

Stan just shrugs. The radio is crackling welcomely, and he turns it up slightly till the monotone news reader becomes the third in the front of the van. “I had to do something. I was sick of just sitting here.” It’s true. He is bored, and restless, but he also wanted to be closer to Mike. It’s not that he’s avoiding Stan, after everything that happened, he just seems hesitant. Stan doesn’t blame him, but that doesn’t stop his yearning to close the distance.

“Well, if you’re really that bored I can step on the gas. I’ll have you in California in three days, tops,” Mike says through a grin, and it’s the first time he’s done that in weeks. Normally his face is laced with concern, with small smiles being graced to Bev, or to Stan when he needs the reassurance. This grin is undiluted, and full, like the ones Mike used to do, when it was just the two of them sitting on the vans bumper, watching birds, and watching each other.

So Stan grins back, and dares to tip his head onto Mike’s shoulder. Mike doesn’t react, doesn’t push Stan off, and he takes it as a victory – even with his dad’s voice louder than ever in his ears. He’s louder than normal at night, but now he’s deafening, flooding the front of the van and obliterating Stan’s other senses.

But it’s okay, because he’s with Mike, who is stronger and surer than anything else. If anyone can block out the voices, it’s Mike.

He can feel the other boy’s eyes flickering down to him, and he could look up, he could look up and cement the moment. He could close the distance between the two of them like he used to, if he were a stronger man and a better person. Instead, he stares resolutely ahead, eyes fixed on the obscured darkness and the small imprints the van’s headlights make.

Mike doesn’t stop looking at him, though, and like a magnet, Stan is drawn up, up, until he’s staring back at him. There’s something more than kindness is Mike’s eyes as he tilts his head the remaining distance and presses their lips together. They’re calloused, but soft, and brush easily against his. Just like how Stan remembered them, in the back of Mike’s van, on the cramped bunk.

Stan’s brain short-circuits, he can’t think about anything because everything in him is screaming as he leans back from Mike. All there is left is Mike, and his heartbeat, steady and sure. Stan presses his fingers against Mike’s neck, and chest, feeling his pulse throb, alive more than anything else Stan has felt in days.

He’s leaning in for the second time when Mike remembers that he’s driving, that they’re on the road, and that there is something – someone – darting in front of the van.

He reacts quickly, grabbing at the steering wheel and veering the car towards the embankment. They mount it harshly, with a jolt, and Stan’s head collides against the roof of the van. He hisses in pain, his hand instinctively flying to the place of impact and clutching it. The van bumpily rolls onwards, then stops, lodged in the grass.

The Mike from earlier, steady and sure, is gone, and instead replaced by the one Stan feels the urge to scoop into his arms and just hold. His eyes are darting around, and he’s shaking, Stan can feel him shaking against the side of his body.

“Did I hit it?” Mike asks anxiously, and he’s talking about the person, or the animal, or whatever it was that ran in front of the car.

Stan would love to lie. Love to gather Mike into his arms and ease out the pain with soft words. He’d love to rewind time, back to the kiss, back to the beginning, to start over and rewrite everything.

But there’s no point lying. Mike knows the truth. It’s written across his face.

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the idea of writing a multiple POV Losers Club thing for a while now, and I thought what better time than quarantine to have a go!! (All my WIPs are screaming at me right now.)
> 
> This fic is a Mike Hanlon Appreciation Fic.


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